Willie Nelson Trivia
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This Willie Nelson trivia quiz has 48 free questions with answers and follows the whole story: the Abbott, Texas kid raised by his grandparents who wrote his first song at seven, the Nashville songwriter behind Crazy and Hello Walls, the outlaw who moved to Austin and turned in Red Headed Stranger to executives who thought it was a demo, and the icon who co-founded Farm Aid, joined The Highwaymen and paid off a $32 million tax bill with an album. You'll get questions on his battered Martin guitar Trigger, the film that produced On the Road Again, the pop-standards album that sat on the country chart for ten years, his duet partners, his biodiesel and cannabis businesses, and the Halls of Fame he belongs to. Difficulty runs from easy fan questions to ones that only serious Willie people will get. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which small Texas town was Willie Nelson born in 1933?
Abbott
Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, a small farming town in Hill County, Texas, on April 29, 1933, and was raised there by his grandparents after his parents left.
Q 02At what age did Willie Nelson write his first song?
Seven
Willie Nelson wrote his first song at age seven, a year after his grandfather bought him a guitar and taught him a few chords; by nine he was playing in a local polka band.
Q 03Which Willie Nelson composition became Patsy Cline's signature hit in 1961?
Crazy
Nelson wrote 'Crazy' in under an hour under the working title 'Stupid'; Patsy Cline, bruised from a recent car crash, recorded her 1961 vocal in a single take.
Q 04Which singer had a 1961 hit with the Willie Nelson song 'Hello Walls'?
Faron Young
Faron Young's recording of 'Hello Walls' spent nine weeks at number one on the country chart in 1961 and crossed over into the pop top 20.
Q 05Which branch of the US military did Willie Nelson join after high school, before a medical discharge?
Air Force
Willie Nelson joined the US Air Force in 1950, the year he finished high school, and persistent back problems brought him a medical discharge within a year.
Q 06To which city did Willie Nelson move in 1972, where the hippie music scene rejuvenated his career?
Austin
Nelson settled in Austin in 1972, where the long-haired crowd at the Armadillo World Headquarters embraced him and helped make him the face of outlaw country.
Q 07What was the title of Willie Nelson's 1973 debut album for Atlantic Records?
Shotgun Willie
Shotgun Willie, cut at Atlantic Studios in New York early in 1973, was Nelson's first album for the label and opened the looser, funkier sound of his 1970s work.
Q 08Roughly how much did it cost to record the 1975 concept album Red Headed Stranger?
$20,000
Nelson recorded Red Headed Stranger at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland, Texas, for about $20,000, so sparse that Columbia executives mistook the finished album for a demo.
Q 09What crime is the fugitive of Red Headed Stranger on the run for?
Killing his wife and her lover
The album's preacher is on the run for killing his wife and her lover, drifting across the West as a fugitive; Nelson played the Stranger himself in a 1986 film version.
Q 10Which Fred Rose song from Red Headed Stranger gave Willie Nelson his first number one hit as a singer?
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain', written by Fred Rose in 1945, topped the country chart in 1975 as Nelson's first number one single and won him his first Grammy.
Q 11Who produced Stardust, Willie Nelson's 1978 album of pop standards?
Booker T. Jones
Booker T. Jones, Nelson's neighbour in Malibu and the leader of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, produced and arranged Stardust, an album Columbia feared would end Nelson's career.
Q 12For how many weeks did Stardust stay on Billboard's country albums chart?
540
Stardust stayed on Billboard's country albums chart for 540 weeks, a full decade from 1978 to 1988, and 'Georgia on My Mind' from the album won Nelson a 1979 Grammy.
Q 13Willie Nelson wrote 'On the Road Again' for which 1980 film he starred in?
Honeysuckle Rose
Nelson wrote 'On the Road Again' for Honeysuckle Rose, the 1980 film in which he played a touring country singer; the song earned an Oscar nomination and the Grammy for Best Country Song.
Q 21How much did the IRS claim Willie Nelson owed when it seized his assets in 1990?
$32 million
In 1990 the IRS said Nelson owed $32 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, largely because tax shelters set up by his accountants were disallowed, and seized his ranch and other property.
Q 22What was the subtitle of The IRS Tapes, the 1992 album Willie Nelson released to pay off his tax debt?
Who'll Buy My Memories?
The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? was a stripped-down double album of Nelson alone with his guitar, sold first by telephone order, with the proceeds going to the IRS.
Q 23What is the name of Willie Nelson's famously battered nylon-string guitar?
Trigger
Q 14On what did Willie Nelson famously scribble the lyrics to 'On the Road Again'?
A barf bag
Nelson jotted the lyrics of 'On the Road Again' on a barf bag from the seat pocket during a flight, after a film producer asked him for a song about life on tour.
Q 15Willie Nelson's 1982 hit 'Always on My Mind' peaked at what position on the Billboard Hot 100?
5
'Always on My Mind' peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982, after earlier versions by Brenda Lee and Elvis Presley, and won Nelson a Grammy for his vocal.
Q 16With which Spanish crooner did Willie Nelson record 'To All the Girls I've Loved Before'?
Julio Iglesias
Julio Iglesias and Nelson recorded 'To All the Girls I've Loved Before' in 1984; the duet topped the country chart, crossed into the pop top ten and won them the CMA's Vocal Duo of the Year award.
Q 17Which song, written by Johnny Bush, became Willie Nelson's traditional concert opener?
Whiskey River
'Whiskey River', written by Johnny Bush, who had a country hit with it in 1972, became the song Nelson used to open his concerts for decades.
Q 18Who wrote 'Highwayman', the number one single that gave Willie Nelson's supergroup its name?
Jimmy Webb
The group also covered Guy Clark's 'Desperados Waiting for a Train' and released three albums between 1985 and 1995.
Q 19With which two musicians did Willie Nelson found Farm Aid in 1985?
John Mellencamp and Neil Young
Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young organised the first Farm Aid in 1985 after Bob Dylan remarked at Live Aid that some of the money should go to American family farmers.
Q 20In which city was the first Farm Aid concert held on September 22, 1985?
Champaign, Illinois
The first Farm Aid took place at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois, home of the University of Illinois; about 80,000 people attended and the show raised over $9 million.
Nelson named the guitar Trigger; bought unseen to replace a Baldwin a drunk had stepped on, its top bears a hole worn by decades of picking and dozens of carved signatures.
Q 24Which company built Willie Nelson's famous nylon-string guitar?
Martin
The guitar is a Martin N-20 classical model with a Brazilian rosewood body and Sitka spruce top; decades of pick strokes have worn a hole through the top near the bridge.
Q 25Which musician was the first to carve his signature into the top of Nelson's famous guitar?
Leon Russell
Leon Russell was the first to sign the guitar, after asking Nelson to sign his, and suggested scratching names in rather than inking them so they would last; over 100 signatures followed.
Q 26What did Willie Nelson vow to do if the IRS ever auctioned off his beloved guitar?
Quit performing
Nelson said that if the guitar ever went, he would quit performing; before the IRS raid his daughter Lana spirited it away and it stayed hidden until the tax debt was settled.
Q 27In which state was Willie Nelson's Ridgetop ranch, which burned down in December 1970?
Tennessee
The ranch was in Ridgetop, Tennessee, north of Nashville; after the December 1970 fire Nelson drifted out of the Nashville orbit and within two years had resettled in Texas.
Q 28What product did Willie Nelson's company Bio-Willie, formed in 2005, market to truck stops?
Biodiesel fuel
BioWillie sold biodiesel fuel, a blend made partly from vegetable oil, at truck stops, pitched by Nelson as a way for truckers to support American farmers while cutting emissions.
Q 29What is the name of the cannabis brand Nelson announced in 2015?
Willie's Reserve
Willie's Reserve, announced in 2015, sold Nelson-branded cannabis in states such as Colorado and Washington where recreational marijuana was legal.
Q 30In which year was Willie Nelson inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame?
1993
Willie Nelson entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, the year he turned 60, and later added the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and the Gershwin Prize in 2015.